REVIEWS
More good design came after the interval in Daniel Davidson’s Open Water (Just What You Wanted). This work had the highest production values of the show and had the look of a pop video or expensive perfume advertisement. Emilie Depauly-Viguie’s all-in-one costumes were a mix of shiny black and deep sparkly blue that occasionally flashed in the moody lighting (Andrew Ellis, who did most of the lighting for the show). It was set off by more Rhia Mitsuhashi backcloth projections, this time of an all-seeing alligator(?) eye and a view across a massive Amazon-like river. If I write a lot about the staging, it’s because it was mesmerising, and the senior dancers looked 110% at home in such a professional context. Davidson, ex-Scottish Ballet and Rambert, certainly delivered the moody look, and just when you think you’ve taken it all in, the piece changes. The projections seem to take you underwater, where the movement for the corps neatly shimmers.
- LiftedLeg
August 24th 2024
The last work before the interval, was the one that impressed me most: Daniel Davidson‘s I think we’re on different planets. It opened in silence and subdued lighting, with just one dancer at the back of the stage, looking rather like an Antony Gormley iron man. Then, very slowly, other dancers stroll on stage to form a 17-strong line, and the cast is assembled. One slowly starts to walk off, and you think, “Good grief, is this a contemporary dance spoof?” But then the piece starts proper, and mysteriously loose duets erupt at the front of the stage while the frieze of dancers at the back provide visual texture and wait their turn. It’s a work about the quest for love and togetherness, and while there are many unhappy looks, the movement is beautiful, stretched and smoothly beguiling. It gains further interest and more group kinetics in the second part to Fabiana Palladino’s Mystery, with its poppy electronic base and haunting vocals. Davidson, ex-Scottish Ballet and Rambert, can really deliver dance with theatrical and exhilarating emotional punch, and I look forward to seeing what he does next.
- LiftedLeg
May 12th 2024
Daniel Davidson’s I think we’re on different planets was a complete contrast, returning to a more contemporary dance vibe. It began in silence as the dancers gradually populated the stage. Isolated, traumatised, clutching their rib cages, they became a collective howl of anguish against loneliness. It reminded me of the Pandemic: the dancers seemed simultaneously to embody both the human victims and individual fragments of the virus worming its way among them, until out of the pain there emerged a beautiful duet.
- Maggie Watson
Oxford Dance Writers
June 2nd 2024
Daniel Davidson’s very appealing Dear, I Fear (a vision in pink) is an exploration of the complexities of relationships and ultimate heartbreak that can occur. Taking up that theme, a series of duets and short small group sections sometimes feel edgy. One beautiful, sensuous duet (Serena McCall and Stanley Young) to Jonas Crabtree’s weirdly beautiful ‘Heart of Glass’ remix, which mixes Blondie with Philip Glass, stands out; that couple later joined by two others. Upstage, like a backing group or chorus, a tight group often forms, shifting like kelp waving gently in an underwater current.
- David Mead
seeingdance.com
June 26th 2023
In the scene named 'Ache' a gauze screen was lowered to cover the front stage with stars and even shooting stars projected onto it. With a rolling space scene on the backdrop behind the dancers, I was awestruck. I was transported to another world - or was it meant to be an asteroid? - either way, it was magnificent and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.
- lisainthetheatre.com
June 15th 2023